


maintenance is the sensible side of love

by orlesiantitans



Series: Damerey Daily 2020 [8]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Nightmares, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-25 07:21:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22232239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orlesiantitans/pseuds/orlesiantitans
Summary: Nightmares plague them both, of mistakes made and friends lost and thoughts dug through, a lingering taste of bitter to the bittersweet victory.A look at lifeafter.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Rey
Series: Damerey Daily 2020 [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1588942
Comments: 5
Kudos: 67





	maintenance is the sensible side of love

**Author's Note:**

> This one's a bit shorter - my muse is being uncooperative at the moment, but I believe that's the best time to write. 
> 
> Also, I finished Jedi: Fallen Order yesterday, and I'm in love with Cal. Just need to put that out there. 
> 
> Title from “Atlas” by U.A. Fanthorpe

It’s hard to say what attracts her to Poe Dameron. If it’s that slightly cocky smirk or the way he calls her ‘sweetheart’ when she’s bugging him, or how _gentle_ he is when they’re both up in the middle of the night, for reasons they do not vocalize. Nightmares plague them both, of mistakes made and friends lost and thoughts dug through, a lingering taste of _bitter_ to the bittersweet victory. She tumbles into his bed one night, on impulse, acting entirely on emotion, and Poe holds her and makes love to her and when he finishes it’s with a muffled cry into her shoulder.

From then on, they’re in orbit of one another. They spend so much time together, and she finds that when they’re not fighting over something they get along fairly well.

It’s not always nice. Some nights, he startles her awake with a yell, a sob, a plea. She reaches for him, holds him to her chest, and he grips her just as tightly and _cries_. She wakes up on the other nights. Sometimes things will fly off shelves or into her hands, sometimes it’s just a silent gasp, a murmur of ‘mama’ or ‘daddy’ and the tight band of fear around her heart. Poe holds her during those, as well. The two of them are whirlwinds of emotion, but they build themselves on that.

Sometimes, it’s downright painful. They lash out on impulse at one another – normally when they’re hurting. When it’s the anniversary of Leia’s death, or of Shara’s death, or of Rey being left on Jakku (she still has a mental tally of the days since she was left – it reaches higher and higher every day, but at least she now knows her parents’ faces).

But lashing out at one another breaks nothing. They are unbreakable, they are a force when they come together. She feels it in the very core of her being whenever they are together – they are right, they are good, they are _meant to be_. Their souls are close enough to be one, and when they _become_ one, that closeness is something else altogether. She is certain that in any universe she went to, she’d choose Poe Dameron every time, because he is good to the core.

They lie facing each other, sweat cooling on their skin, and he brushes her hair back from her face with the pad of his thumb. His hands are calloused from years of flying, but his touch is always gentle, always tender.

“Marry me,” he whispers. Any other time, perhaps she’d have been shocked. But instead, she just smiles at him, and says yes, and he slips his mother’s ring from around his neck and onto her finger. It fits, and she feels him wrap his hand around hers, feels the press of it into her skin, and she smiles at him so hard she feels as though her skin could crack from the force of it. He presses his lips to it, over and over and then he’s crying, but he’s not hurting. He’s happy.

He cries at their wedding, too. When he sees her, when he dances with her, when his father sweeps her up in his arms and calls her ‘mija’, as though she’s his daughter – and it pleases her, that she has this family around her – the family she’s found, as well as the family standing just off to the side. The glow around them separates them from the rest of the room, but she feels that they are a part of her as certainly as her own heart it. Luke and Leia are the centre of it all, but Ben’s smiling faintly as well, as though he’s happy she’s found something. Anakin, Qui Gon, Obi Wan, Yoda, all of them are watching her as Poe spins her around the floor, and when she steps off to the side, cheeks flushed with joy, Leia takes her hand in her own and whispers in her ear of the secret she carries beneath her navel.

She feels their children as they grow, both of them. A boy and girl – incomparable joy, and hope, but also that hint of darkness. But she is not Leia, she is not Luke. She knows that to hold darkness is not necessarily a desire to serve it. Without darkness, there is no light – and too much of either is when things start to get dangerous. A star is dangerous when you get close to it – as much as a black hole is dangerous. She knows that she can nurture her children’s natures while ensuring that they don’t go so dark that they hurt others.

Poe, of course, is the doting father they write about in holonovels. He presses his hand to her belly whenever the babies kick, he whispers to them when she tries to sleep, sings to her (and them) as often as he can. She knows, from what she can hear of her children, that they _love_ to hear papa sing – and she joins in once she learns the words, and this is something else where they are a duo, where they work in harmony.

She feels their children tumble within her, and she meets Poe’s loving eyes, and decides that yes – emotion is the most human thing there is. And it’s given her everything she could want. Could need.


End file.
